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Studies in psychology have long revealed that making personal choice involves multiple motivational consequences. It has only been recent, however, that the literature on neuroscience started to examine the neural underpinnings of personal choice and motivation. This chapter reviews this sparse, but emergent, body of neuroscientific literature to address possible neural correlates underlying personal choice. By conducting the review, we encourage future systematic research programs that address this topic under the new realm of “autonomy neuroscience.” The chapter especially focused on the following motivational aspects: (i) personal choice is rewarding, (ii) personal choice shapes preference, (iii) personal choice changes the perception of outcomes, and (iv) personal choice facilitates motivation and performance. The reviewed work highlighted different aspects of personal choice, but indicated some overlapping brain areas – the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) – which may play a critical role in motivational processes elicited by personal choice.

Motivation significantly influences learning and memory. While a long history of research has focused on simple forms of associative learning, such as Pavlovian conditioning, recent research is beginning to characterize how motivation influences episodic memory. In this chapter we synthesize findings across behavioral, cognitive, and educational neuroscience to characterize motivation’s influence on memory. We provide evidence that neural systems underlying motivation, namely the mesolimbic dopamine system, interact with and facilitate activity within systems underlying episodic memory, centered on the medial temporal lobes. We focus on two mechanisms of episodic memory enhancement: encoding and consolidation. Together, the reviewed research supports an adaptive model of memory in which an individual’s motivational state (i.e., learning under states of reward or punishment) shapes the nature of memory representations in service of future goals. The impact of motivation on learning and memory, therefore, has very clear implications for and applications to educational settings.

This chapter explores how self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017), an empirical theory about human motivation and personality, aligns with principles and practices of social and emotional learning (SEL) within the school context. Through its emphasis on basic psychological needs (BPN) for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, SDT proposes a broad perspective on how the social context can facilitate the development of social and emotional skills, which complements SEL programs. Research anchored in SDT has indeed established that students' academic, social, and emotional skills are determined at least partly by the extent to which their BPN are fulfilled in their learning environment. SDT also brings attention to the motivation and goals underlying the teaching and learning of social and emotional skills. Although SDT-based interventions mainly target the school or the classroom climate rather than students' skills, they can also foster the development of the five core social and emotional competencies defined by CASEL (2005). Implications and future directions for practices and research integrating SDT-based principles and interventions within SEL programs and practices are discussed.